Time Stop

"Ha...guh...huh..." Isaac sprints like there's no tomorrow, like there's no one in this world. He ignored his surrounding, ran forward with no other thoughts but to keep running forward.

He heard faint screams for help from the back, a feminine sound, and soon after it was noises of meat tearing off the bone. But all these noises slowly fades, only the sound of his footsteps intensifies, each step heavier than the previous, he doesn't feel exhaustion, he doesn't feel much at all.

"Oh my god..." He muttered, in the vast nothingness he traverses on, is that familiar faces right ahead? Yes that is, that's Nick Jones, the one who saved his life.

"Ahhh, I'm not alone." He thought with a forced smile on his face.

"Mr. Jones!" He called out with a wave, "I-"

Chomps

Before getting another sentence out his mouth, his head was buried in the hound's jaws from behind.

His blood splattered all on the teenage girl, who was still standing still, right in front of his collapsing corpse.

Thump

It dropped next to the teenage girl, who still couldn't react to the situation, she didn't even realise why she was covered in blood within seconds, and why this weird-looking dog the size of a tiger is growling in front of her.

"RUN!"

It was too late however, the girl was pressed to the ground by the hound within seconds, and her insides were poured out.

"It was a good run." Liam kept thinking to himself, while Tyler slapped the snake falling on his head with his branch, "What are you doing just standing?!" He hurriedly said.

"Oh...okay then, maybe I can still live." Liam thought, then swung his branch at other approaching snakes.

Two snakes fell right on top of Chris, who threw away his branch earlier just to beat up the male survivor.

"Chris!" Brandon cries out.

"AHHHHHH!" Chris struggles, he successfully grabbed both snakes' necks to prevent their bite on his neck, but one of the snakes still managed to sink one fang into his wrist, "Goddamn it."

Right next to him, the male survivor swings his tree branch frantically and succeeded in deflecting a few snakes away from himself, "GET OUT OF HERE!" He cries out while defending himself.

The pain from the fang caused Chris to loosen his grip, causing the snake to slip through his palms and sink the second fang into his wrist, "AH!" Not thinking clearly, Chris frees his other hand to pull the snake off his wrist. The snake that was freed from that hand almost immediately aimed for the neck, sinking the fangs straight into the throat, Chris couldn't even scream in agony against that.

"NO!"

"Shit."

Brandon and Tyler exclaimed respectively.

Another snake fell from directly above, sinking it's fangs into Chris's left eye, making blood spill out like tears. Soon, black veins starts spreading from all three bitten spot, and Chris collapsed onto his knees.

Samantha hurriedly gets back up on her feet, holding her knife in her trembling hands, she thought she was in the best shape to fight of anyone.

The middle aged woman woke up from the kick earlier, only to be greeted by yet another rabid hound, leaping enthusiastically towards her, then dragging her by her hair in it's jaw.

Samantha kept herself between the hound and her injured father the whole time, even when the hound was engrossed in feasting.

But Nick didn't like that, "Sam..." He stood up and placed Samantha behind his back.

"No! No Dad, get behind me." Her strength was futile against Nick's, she wasn't able to pull him back behind her.

"Run away Sam...tell your mother I loved her."

"No! You're not doing that!" She kept trying to pull him back by the waist, but her strength is simply not comparable to his, it's like trying to drag a boulder thrice her size.

"And also remember that I love you, Sam..." Nick said.

Tears formed on Samantha's eyes, she still doesn't turn her back, she still doesn't run, she still keeps her arms around her father's waist. She eventually gave up on pulling him away, instead she simply rests her head on his back.

"Run, Sam...please run, don't leave your mother alone..."

"I'm not leaving you alone either. I'm fighting with you."

"Sam..."

"I'M FIGHTING WITH YOU!" She lets go of him, then grabbed her kitchen knife on the floor, preparing herself for combat, but Nick still stopped her movements forward with his back, "Please run...please run, Sam."

Nick turned around to show his sincerity in his eyes, pleading for Samantha to run, "Please. Run for me...won't you?"

The hound has had enough with dead targets, it left the woman's torn apart corpse and averted it's menacing red gaze to Nick. It growled, then it leapt with furious barks.

"AHH!" A snake got to the male survivor too, from the back of his neck, black veins spreads and eventually his eyes darkened. For Brandon, he was also surrounded and nearly overwhelmed by the snakes.

"Shit shit shit SHIT!" Tyler exclaimed.

"We should run." Liam suggested, not aware that a snake was approaching him from right behind. Tyler noticing the snake, immediately shoved Liam to the side, leading to the snake's pounce to hit himself.

"Tyler." Liam called out as he grabs the snake by it's tail, pulls it then throws it away with all his strength.

Liam approaches Tyler and checks his exposed skin hurriedly. Unfortunately, he was already bitten in the right forearm.

"Hehe...you said my name..." Then Tyler fell backwards onto grass. Black veins spreads around his forearm, Liam knelt down, he attempted to stop the spread by squeezing and massaging the veins as well as the bite wound.

Nothing seemed to work, Liam was about to simply suck the venom out with his mouth as a desperate last move, but Tyler stopped him with his other arm, "Are you stupid?"

Tyler's dying, but his face was a satisfied one, he had a faint smile and although his eyes were darkening up, it showed no signs of frustrations or struggling, "At least I saved one of you..." Tyler chuckled, "Thank god for you, Liam, you acknowledges me as your friend after all..."

That was his last words, before he loses all strength lying in Liam's cold embrace.

At that exact moment, the snakes that were just about to bite Brandon suddenly froze up. Like a time stop, the snake was floating in the air, fangs were exposed, centimetres away from Brandon's face.

So was the snakes approaching Liam, who was embracing Tyler tightly without regards of his surroundings. The snakes stopped moving, stopped being lively.

"HARH!" Nick swings his left arm frantically, but the effort was wasted, the hound evaded all strikes flawlessly and broke Nick's legs with one clean bite.

"ARGH!"

"DAD!"

"RUN!"

Samantha still couldn't run, but she doesn't wish to disobey her father and lead herself to death either. Faced with the dilemma, she couldn't move neither forwards nor backwards.

All she did was watch, watch her father's valiant yet futile struggles as the jaws of the hound closes around his face.

Devastated, her legs gave in and she fell onto the ground. Bathed in blood, sweat and tears, she sits with nothing in her mind. A blank mind was all there is left, numbness spreads across her body.

"Dad?" She called, despite not being able to see his face.

In the end, she couldn't do anything, she was helpless, utterly helpless.

After a rampage, the hound still hadn't had enough, it leapt at Samantha furiously...yet paused in air. Right before landing the final blow, it's as if time froze, the hound levitated mid-air, it became inanimate, even the blood in his mouth and the fur on his body paused it's movements, defying all laws of physics.

Brandon looked closer at his surroundings, it wasn't just the snakes, even the fire stopped flickering, even the leaves stopped wavering, even the ashes and smoke stopped flying.

Time stopped, except for humans on both the island and the mall.

Brandon was confused, but then he suddenly remembered this was all a Would You Rather game, it had rules and conditions. He quickly checked his watch for the time, 2:49am, the game is supposed to end at 4:00am.

"What the hell...?" Brandon questioned while his eyes slowly blurred, so was everyone else's eyes.

Everyone started becoming uncontrollably and unwarrantedly tired, irresistibly sleepy.

"You feel tired?"

"Yeah I don't...I don't know..."

Thump CLINK CLANK

He fell, bringing a few kitchen utensils down with him.

"Huh? ..." She fell asleep too, dropped onto the floor like she hasn't slept in weeks.

So did everyone, people started sleeping left and right on both the island and the mall. Eventually, no one was left conscious.

None except, the man operating the helicopter and the man in a three piece suit hanging on it's side. The helicopter slowly descends on the island, shining a huge beam of light at the players on the shore so the man hanging outside can observe them with binoculars.

"Now that was intense." He commented.